Students enjoy the
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum’s “Teddy Roosevelt"
exhibit. Model of USS Maine courtesy of the Department of the
Navy.

“It was my one chance.”

The Republican Party
nominated William McKinley for the 1896 Presidential election. As a true
party man, TR took on the role of attack dog lambasting Democratic nominee
William Jennings Bryan across the country. McKinley won handily and Roosevelt
hoped for a job in the new administration. But TR was seen as a rabble rouser
by many in his party, including Senator Tom Platt, the political boss for
New York. Platt saw an opportunity to dump his state’s rabble in McKinley’s
lap. The reluctant President-elect fumed, “I hope he has no preconceived
plans which he would wish to drive through the moment he got in.”

TR was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
a prominent yet weak position. Undaunted, TR threw his whole being into
the new job, determined to make the Navy stronger and combat ready. He
pressured his boss, John Davis Long, the Secretary of the Navy, and the
President to exert the nation’s influence in both the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans.

Meanwhile tensions between the United States and
Spain were running high. Spain’s handling of rebellions in Cuba,
indeed its presence alone so close to the U.S., strained relations with
America. But when in 1898, a Navy ship, the USS Maine, sent to Cuba to
protect American lives, blew up in Havana harbor, America was outraged.
The public clamored for action as newspapers fanned the flames of war.
Caught up in the frenzy, TR sprang into action, pressing for wartime legislation,
putting all ships on alert, ordering fuel and ammunition, and positioning
the fleet for combat. This flurry of activity prompted President McKinley
to sarcastically ask his doctor, Leonard Wood (a war hawk), “Have
you and Theodore declared war yet?” Wood replied, “No, Mr.
President, but we think that you should.”

Roosevelt, acting in the absence of Secretary Long,
ordered Commodore George Dewey’s fleet to prepare to attack the
Spanish navy at Manila in the Philippines. Dewey was in position when
Congress finally declared war and he sank the Spanish fleet.

With the war officially begun, TR resigned his
office and along with Wood raised a cavalry unit to fight in Cuba. Mixing
Ivy Leaguers with cowboys, the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry became known
as the Rough Riders, led by Colonel Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt.
TR thought this his “one chance” to bathe himself in the glory
of war. Long’s response to his brash underling was no less calculating.
“He is acting like a fool,” said the Secretary. “And,
yet, how absurd all this will sound if, by some turn of fortune, he should
accomplish some great thing and strike a very high mark.” Long had
no idea how prophetic those words were.

After intense training in San Antonio, Wood and
TR lobbied hard to Washington for their unit to be one of the first to
see action in Cuba. They got their wish, landing on the island in June
1898, though without their horses, victims to poor logistics. In the next
few days, Roosevelt would lead his men through skirmishes, including “the
great day of my life,” his charge up San Juan Hill. With disregard
for himself, Roosevelt led his men through blistering, Spanish gun fire.
True courage at the most celebrated battle of the Spanish-American War,
along with some self-promotion, made TR the war’s biggest hero and
a coveted political figure.